1500 Sausages of Germany: The Mighty Currywurst

Currywurst is to Germany as pizza is to Italy, hot dogs are to America and fish and chips are to Great Britain. But only a few have their own museum. The glorious currywurst is Germany’s traditional modest snack of sliced pork sausages drenched in a tangy curry-tomato sauce and boasts of its own sausage shrine.

The Deutsches Currywurst Museum in Berlin is a memorial to all things currywurst, celebrating one of Germany’s iconic dishes. Yearly, 800 million currywurst are devoured every year - that’s a staggering 1500 per minute! Despite its name, the currywurst is not actually a sausage that is curried. The secret of the currywurst stems from the unique sauce - a simple but unforgettable medley of pureed tomatoes flavored with a sprinkling of a mild curry mixture.

Each chef creates his own distinct sauce recipe and no two Germans will agree about the absolute perfect currywurst. Some like theirs with a sweet taste of Indian spices, others with a touch of mustard powder and still others hot and spicy with chilies, as a matter of fact some like it really hot. Then there is the matter of how you pair the currywurst - popular are French fries or a bread roll. However, the currywust has become such a cult that star chefs are putting it on their menus and creating a variety of different pairings like serving it with coleslaw, rice or baked potatoes.

What started out as the “poor man’s steak” and sold in street stands all over Germany can now also be found in high-end restaurants served on chinaware with a glass of champagne to wash it down. In my opinion the currywurst is simply best without the swanky airs and enjoyed standing up in an omnipresent outdoor snack bar, served in a cardboard or plastic box with a wooden fork or a toothpick, with hot, crispy frites. While Berlin, the Mecca of the currywurst, offers a range of great currywurst joints (my favorite the Curry 36 in Berlin’s hip Kreuzberg district), it is Weimar that makes the most divine currywurst I have ever tasted to date. People queue up at all hours of the day for a currywurst deemed particularly tangy and aromatic.

With a waiting time of approx. 20-40 minutes, people stand patiently at Fritz Mitte in the narrow street in Weimar’s city center. The sausages are fried to perfection and two currywurst sauces are offered for the currywurst fan - hot and spicy or mild and tangy. The currywurst are served with piping hot and crispy Belgian-style frites, sizzled to perfection. You will be asked to select from a range of mayonnaise and with flavors like wasabi, truffle, mustard and garlic to name a few you’ll be spoilt for choice.

No surprises that I headed out to Fritz Mitte to feature Germany’s favorite street food for this month’s Monthly Mingle hosted at Zizi’s Adventures with the theme Street Food.

There is some controversy over how the currywurst came into being and has two big German cities squabbling for years.

Berliners will insist, a housewife, Herta Heuwer, created the currywurst in September 1949, less than four months after the end of the Allies' Berlin Airlift. As the story goes, Heuwer traded some English curry against spirits with parched British soldiers and after experimenting in her kitchen she mixed the spices with a dash of American ketchup, and a drop of Worcester sauce, concocting the cheap yet filling dish now known as currywurst: grilled sausage, sliced, with a gravy-like sauce containing English Curry and stewed tomatoes. At a time when Germany was a changing nation, this meal was fitting -- comfort topped with a hint of exoticism.

Residents of Hamburg in northern Germany, however also claim the currywurst for their own, with the Currywurst Club of Hamburg even going so far as to accuse Berlin of re-writing the history books.

Whoever first created the dish, the fact remains that the currywurst is a central part of German history and there is no such thing as the currywurst - every one likes the dish differently. Currywurst is as much about your trusted street vendor, creating his own signature sauce and the people you meet standing in the queues, as it is about the food itself.

You will see the anticipation of the faces of the people queuing up to get their doses of sausage in an exotic spiced tomato sauce and if you are in Weimar, a selection of scrumptious flavored mayonnaise served generously on thickly cut, crispy fried frites. So please do queue up and chat with the people waiting in line and check out the smiles on the faces of those already tucking into this sensational snack.

Although currywurst is best enjoyed at a street stall or vendor you can make this at home. My recipe is flavored with some Indian spices and the orange juice adds a tangy, slightly sweeter note. It really is a darned delicious sauce. You can use it for pizza or pasta sauce too or try it on roasted chicken. The rule to a really good sauce is anything goes. Use this as your basic recipe but be fearless and experiment to find the perfect balance of ingredients to suit your palate.

To make the tomato ketchup caramelize the onions with the sugar in a pan over medium heat, taking care not to burn the onions. Add the curry powder, cinnamon stick and chili and gently heat for a few seconds. Pour the orange juice, stock, tomato paste, tomatoes and vinegar into the saucepan. Mix well and simmer on a low heat for approx. 40 minutes, until the sauce has thickened.

While the sauce is simmering heat up a skillet with the tablespoon of rapeseed oil and fry the pork sausages from all sides. Cut into chunks.

Place the sausage chunks in a plate and pour the tomato sauce over them, sprinkling generously with the curry powder.

Serve with hot crispy fries sprinkled with salt and more curry powder.

Notes: You can make your own curry powder with 1 teaspoon each of mustard seeds, turmeric, black cumin seeds, cardamom seeds, coriander seeds and black peppercorn and grinding into a powder. You can also add a few dry chilies if you prefer the sauce to be hotter. Store the spice mixture in a dry air-tight container.

26 comments:

Ha, I didn't even know that you have "Fritz Mitte" in Weimar! Fritz Mitte was found in Jena, by our friend Stefan. I sometimes craving a good currywurst with belgian fries. A, and one more thing - I love the truffles mayo :-)hugs, Sandy

I like mine with mustard, but your recipe with orange juice is a must try! I remember having some awesome curry wurst around the Ruhrpot area. For some reason this dish never reached Austria. Some turks do sell it there in their kebab take aways, but its not the same. Austrians stick to wiener wurscht. hehe

If there is one thing I have always enjoyed on my trips to Germany...it's the sausages! Whilst I prefer the bratwurst I can still devour a plate of currywurst! Great write up Meeta and thanks for sharing all the info!

O boy.... I am having visions of biting into one of those juicy babies now... I can still vividly remember the ones we had at the BBQ! Gotta love German sausages. Great pics Meeta and perfect entry for the Monthly Mingle ofcourse! Love it!

I wish this post was available one year ago when my husband and I visited Germany. To our bad luck, in Berlin, the place we tried currywurst at was simply awful; I think the chef added too much turmeric in the sauce. (All the other German food we ate was awesome!) I hope we can visit Germany again and eat currywursts at the places you've recommended. Until then, I'll have to be content making currywurst at home. Thanks for the recipe!

Thank you for visiting What's For Lunch, Honey? and taking time to browse through my recipes, listen to my ramblings and enjoy my photographs. I appreciate all your comments, feedback and input. I will answer your questions to my best knowledge and respond to your comments as soon as possible.

In the meantime I hope you enjoy your stay here and that I was able to make this an experience for your senses.

Hello, I am Meeta a freelance food photographer, stylist and writer living in the cuturally rich city of Weimar, Germany with my husband and our son, where I enjoy preparing multi-cultural home cooked meals with fresh organic ingredients. What's for lunch, Honey? is my award winning food blog where I combine my love for food with my love for photography and styling...